Or at least annoying visits from the police that may lead to confiscation:

FIREARM owners in Wodonga, and in fact the whole of Victoria, have been put on notice.

Victoria police will be calling on them in the coming months to check they are complying with the law when it comes to the stage storage of their weapons.

And those who are not doing the right thing had better watch out as the penalties for breaking the law are pretty severe.

I liked Australia before they went crazy.

GLN sets the media straight on straw purchases:

There is a fundamental flaw in this description. A ‘straw purchase’ is a violation of federal law and can not be done legally. The 4473 form requires to certify that they buyer is the actual buyer of the firearm(s), which in the case of a straw purchase is false. Lying on the 4473 is a violation of federal law. Therefore, the idea that “a person buys the gun legally” is a false starting point.

You could write that on a baseball bat and hit most reporters with it and they still wouldn’t get it.

I wonder if knives are arms. No matter, I think people should be allowed to own them. In comments, KCSteve points us to United States Knife & Tool Association:

The United States Knife & Tool Association (USKTA) is proposed to serve knife and tool owners as their advocate against restrictions on knife and tool ownership and carry. Many industry insiders believe that knife owners are too apathetic, that until they see local or state laws proposed to restrict their freedoms, they won’t do anything; that this effort is doomed to failure. They may be right. What I know is that if we don’t try, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

SayUncle supports the right to own and carry slashy and pointy things.

At 5:00 PM many people from West Knoxville will meet in the large assembly room of the City County building for a special meeting of the Knox County School Board.

The issue is whether to send the new Hardin Valley High School back to Knox County Commission so it can be fully funded. Parents are furious that the school is under-funded at a time when the Knox County Commission voted to spend 5 million dollars on a Business Park in Blount County to create jobs in Blount County when this school has sat in limbo for two years. Only Knox County Commissioner Scott Moore voted against the Blount County give away.

Today on WNOX radio Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale debated a local citizen Todd Townsend for 45 minutes on the Hallerin Hill radio program. In a “David versus Goliath” struggle the Mayor tried to make sense of his stubborn defense of the under-funded high school. The Mayor was adamant that the school must be built for 40 million dollars even if it can only be built for 1,300 students. While Goliath did walk away from the battle without a fatal wound he did take one in the shorts. The Governor’s mansion in Nashville looks very distant at this point for the County Mayor.
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Heh.

The other biased Washington paper:

Consider these eye-opening FBI and Metropolitan Police Department statistics: Since 1976, when the District of Columbia imposed its ban on guns, the city’s murder rate, which had been declining, started to increase; between 1976 and 1991 it rose 200 percent, while the U.S. murder rate rose just 9 percent.

Did not know that. Also, I found this bit interesting:

“The legislation is long overdue,” said the National Rifle Association, referring this week to the “District of Columbia Personal Protection Act,” introduced in each house by Rep. Mark Souder, Indiana Republican, and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas Republican.

If passed, the legislation in each House would restore the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection of the laws” by ending the city’s unique prohibition on allowing guns for self-defense in one’s home, while retaining stiff penalties for illegal gun possession and gun crimes.

Err, I thought that was what the judiciary did and not congress. Of course, the judiciary has basically been full of shit when it comes to anything regarding the second amendment.

KETV:

It appears that concealed weapons will be permitted in Omaha.

The Omaha City Council on Tuesday afternoon successfully overrode the veto of Mayor Mike Fahey in a 5-2 vote.

That’s the same vote when the measure was passed two weeks ago.

The council’s move reverses the city’s longtime ban on concealed weapons.

Good.

I haven’t dog-training-blogged in a while. So, here’s some stuff.

We socialize and train our dogs for certain behaviors. But bear in mind a few notes on dogs that you ought not forget, no matter how much training you’ve done:

Dogs are not people. They are animals. Don’t forget that.

All dogs are killers. More specifically, all dogs have the ability (and even desire) to kill. Even that little yappy dog that some rich lady keeps in her purse is a killer at heart. It’s just a killer in a small package. Killing for dogs is the natural order of things. People often seem shocked or surprised when you remind them that fluffy-pookins has gnarly teeth for a reason.

Dogs are also scavengers. They’ll eat things that the thought of will make a billy goat puke. They’ll eat roadkill, feces, your child’s vomit, their own vomit, and all sorts of other nasty things.

For dogs, there is the dominant dog and all other dogs are subservient. In the dog’s eyes, you as master should be the dominant dog. Dogs are quite content with this as they favor a strong leader. If you are not the dominant dog in your dog’s eyes, you’re in for trouble. For a dominance test, look at these behaviors:

More things about dogs:

Dogs have no sense of fairness. Dogs don’t understand that it’s not fair for a big dog to attack a little dog. It’s the order of things to determine who is dominant. If you have two dogs and one very clearly is dominant over the other, your intervention in that should be minimal (by that, I mean if they fight you break it up). Do not treat them as though things should be fair or equal. They are not. For example, if one dog hops on the couch to lay at your feet and does not allow the other dog up, you’re doing no one any favors by inviting the other dog up. You have challenged the more dominant dog to re-assert himself over the other. You can control this only when you’re present, when you go to work, they’re going to iron out exactly who the boss is.

Dogs should be supervised when around children. More to the point, you’re supervising the child. I trust my dogs with my kids. I don’t trust my kids with my dogs. Junior will tug ears, pull tails, swat, and chase the dogs. The dogs will take it and like it. But, I still correct Junior and put the dog outside or in a bedroom. If a child physically hurts a dog, the dog may bite in defense. If I’m cooking dinner or otherwise can’t devote my attention to supervision, the kids and dogs are separated. Always.

Dogs do not understand sharing. They either have it or they want it. They don’t care if the other dog has it or not.

Dogs do not understand evil. Whether it’s chasing a field mouse, killing a neighborhood cat, or biting someone, dogs do not see these actions as evil. It’s just how things are. For them, it’s the natural order.

If your dog attacks someone who is a family member or invited guest, you shoot it. Non-invited folks are excepted because that’s what the dog does.

If your dog is out in public, it should be restrained. Dogs should be on leashes in public.

Do not let your dog run wild in the neighborhood. Have a fence. If you don’t, they will go scavenging and killing.

Dogs are wonderful animals, if properly socialized, trained, and supervised.

Someone is stealing Fug’s pics of his dog in bunny ears. Well, just get your own dogs some bunny ears:

Chuck notes some irony in a couple of anti-gun articles:

Although white South Africans seem to fret the most loudly about violent crime, poor black neighborhoods like the one Armaroesi lives in have the highest murder and attempted murder rates.

And:

South Africans, especially white South Africans, are among the best armed private citizens on Earth.

Maybe those two should get together.

So says Phelps:

Winning Lebanese opinion is not an objective. It would be nice if Lebanon liked Israel, but it isn’t something that Israel needs to survive. In fact, it would probably be so expensive that it would not be worth having. Israel has written Lebanon off as an ally. They have had 15 years as a “democracy” and six years of cease-fire to do something. In that time they have done nothing. There can be no more waiting.

Update: Ayup.

Even with the air conditioner on:

The dog’s handler left his dog in a police cruiser outside the station with the engine running and air conditioner on. But the car stalled. When the handler returned, the dog was dead.

The NYT erroneously reports:

These are just two of several hundred such deaths that will almost certainly occur this year. Guns account for 10 percent of all injury-related deaths among children ages 5 to 14.

I guess they were called on it as they non-correct thusly:

The Personal Health column in Science Times yesterday, about gun safety, included an incorrect statistic from a medical journal on firearm deaths. They make up about 10 percent of deaths caused by injury among children aged 5 to 14, not 10 percent of all deaths in that age group.

KABA notes:

According to the CDC’s WISQARS website, between 1999 and 2003 there were 14,242 “accidental injury” deaths among children between 5 and 14, and 297 (or 2.09%) were caused by firearms. And if you expand that artificial age range to include all children 14 and under, the percentage drops to 1.31%.

Still not right.

Commenter Gatt Suru I noticed now has a blog called Citizen’s Arrest. He’s doing gun stuff, like the New York reload (if you don’t know what that is, go read) and some knife blogging.

Within reason, I’ve often felt it better to regret something I have done as opposed to something I haven’t done. Turns out, it’s a good philosophy:

The older we get, the more we regret choosing virtue over vice, new research shows.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some hobos to kill and your wife to sleep with.

I guess AC stands for Air Conditioning because that shit’s cold:

Remember, friends don’t let friends post farcical forwarded emails.

I’ve mentioned before that I love conspiracy theories because they’re entertaining. Seriously, Hollywood should make some of them into movies.

Well, via whoever is blogging at insty’s place, comes a whole slew of 9/11 conspiracy theories.

The AP:

A 19-year-old man [ed note: if a gun were involved, he would be a child] was arrested after authorities said he shined a laser pointer at a police helicopter.

The bright green laser beamed into the cockpit late Monday night, temporarily blinding the officers, said Melissa Klein, an NYPD spokeswoman.

Seems pretty annoying but now dastardly. But:

Police arrested Anthony Pepe a short time later, and charged him with reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon, Klein said.

Was the laser attached to a gun? Or is a laser a weapon in New York?

In the NY Times, Jane Brody pleads with parents to use gun safes to make their guns inaccessible. After all, as she notes, guns make up “10 percent of all injury-related deaths among children ages 5 and 14”. Still, I’m not quite sure how locking up guns will help since

Even in homes where all the guns were locked away, the children were as likely to report having handled a gun in the home as were children in homes where guns were stored unlocked.

Interestingly, she cite statistics that suggest kids are really good at finding the things their parents hide. 60% of the kids who handled guns at home did so without the knowledge of their parents. In other words, you might think it’s safely stored, but your kids could tell you otherwise.

Brody ends the article with some good advice on what to tell your kids about guns:

[T]hey must be told never to touch a gun or bullets and to assume that any gun is loaded and can be fired. If they find a gun anywhere or encounter someone handling a gun, they must leave the area at once, go to a safe place and tell an adult what they saw as soon as possible.

I’m a big believer in being in control of your guns and your kids. If you’re not pretty damn certain about the location and control of one or both of them, you’re doing something wrong.

The Knoxville News Sentinel and WATE provide coverage of last nights school board workshop concerning the fate of the new Hardin Valley High School. The “new” plan is too built a school for 1,300 students and to built the cafeteria, gym, and auditorium for 2000 students. The second phase of the school, an edition for 700 students, would be built 3 to 5 years after the school is opened. Has there ever been a more disrespectful and contemptible power play in Knox County government?

There has not been a high school built in West Knox County for 25 years. This high school was needed ten years ago. Were there people on the school board that wanted to buy land and hold it for the future? I have heard there were but the matter never came to a vote because of the same old day in day out politics of Knox County.

There is money in the Knox County budget for this school to be built for 2000 students. The problem is Mayor Mike Ragsdale. He asks that others compromise but he reserves the right to never compromise. This entire problem started when Mayor Ragsdale arbitrarily picked a 40 million dollar number for the price of the new school. Anyone could have told the Mayor that it was impossible to build a 2000 student high school for 40 million dollars. The Mayor’s excuse is that the school was originally to hold 1700 students and he remains steadfast that the school could have been built using “special” construction techniques to come in on budget. Those “special” construction techniques could come from his brother in law who owns a prominent construction firm. There was a great deal of light shined on that and the normal pesky bidding process occurred instead.
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Tom is talking energy efficiency:

So this weekend, I was looking for information on how to replace the thermostat on my attic fan. My googling took me to this energy efficiency website, which says that attic fans actually do more harm than good. The site seemed quite credible, and I started looking around at other sections, and learning about all kinds of stuff I was doing wrong.

He has some good info. I commented:

My tips: Ceiling fan in the garage; insulate your garage (and garage door); It’s amazing how much heat from the garage comes in the house.

Vinyl windows.

The spray on insulation (like a foam) and not the pink kind.

Use 2X6s instead of 2X4s for exterior walls in the house. An extra 2 inches of insulation makes a big difference.

But then, I’m building so i make these choices as I go. kinda tough if you’re house already exists.

Yeah, I know. I change houses more than I change cars.

Also, on the super nifty scale, is I’m getting perpetual hot water. Basically, the piping is heated so when you turn hot water on anywhere it is instantly hot. No waiting on it to travel from the hot water heater to the kitchen.

It’s no longer a secret, silly.

In an update to the settlement of some pawn shops with NYC, Cam Edwards says:

I’ve gotta do some checking on what the current language is, but I wonder if this “historic settlement” doesn’t violate the law?

Meanwhile, Bitter says:

Now, given that these are just two random pawn shops in Georgia, I can understand why they don’t want to fight NYC. On the other hand, this comes after news about Bob Barr’s lawsuit against the city and revelations that it was the investigators who lied on federal forms and are being investigated by the ATF for those actions. Why didn’t these guys have their lawyers call Barr? Or, if they really didn’t want to be bothered by future anti-gun mayors, why didn’t they just get out of the firearms business? Now every anti-gun mayor is going to try a stunt like this and target those shops.

Nashville TeeVee reports:

The FBI and Metro police are warning their officers about some dangerous weapons after an unusually perilous year for knife attacks.

In this era of gun control, there is renewed concern about knives, especially concealed weapons that are disguised as normal items.

This FBI recently sent out a bulletin across the country that indicates even a blade less than three inches long can produce a fatal stab injury.

A brief interlude on knife fighting: you don’t stab, you cut. It’s easier for the recipient of said wound to fight back if they’re just plugging a hole than it is for them to fight back if they’re trying to hold their insides in.

More:

Authorities recently have found people carrying a knife that was described as a lipstick case, a gun hidden in a radio, a stun gun in a flashlight and even a gun concealed in a knife.

According to Metro statistics, there were 270 knife attacks in Nashville in 2005. So far this year, there have already been 293 knife attacks.

Wow, I guess knives are getting popular. And my favorite:

A weapon that is generating much of the concern is a tactical knife that is often described as the perfect pocketknife since it is perfectly legal and easily worn on the hip.

Yes, folks, assault knives!

The FBI is concerned because the blade easily flips out and can be used to attack an unsuspecting individual.

Residents who carry regular pocket knives do not need to be concerned by the new bulletin. Only knife blades that are longer than four inches are against the law to carry.

I happen to have a knife that flips out easily but the blade is only 3 or so inches long. It’s similar to this one but you can buy it at Wal-Mart for about $30. I didn’t know it was tactical. I guess tactical is a synonym for convenient.

Like Katie, Junior has recently started school. She started last week and is having a good time. She’s learning a few words (such as sleep instead of night night) and some neat things such as when you take your shoes and socks off, you can stuff your socks into the shoes.

The Brady Bunch issued a presser that congratulates Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City of New York for the historic settlement announced today with two Georgia gun dealers. No details of the settlement. Seems odd. I wonder if the settlement is NYC pays the dealers money and they don’t sue NYC? The Bradies stick to the lie that gun dealers who were caught red-handed making illegal sales when the only law-breaking that has been confirmed is that NYC’s investigators broke the law by lying on Form 4473.

If anyone has the settlement details, let me know.

Update: Whoop, there it is:

Less than three months after announcing a groundbreaking lawsuit against 15 gun dealers in five states that sold guns illegally, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, joined by Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Criminal Justice Coordinator John Feinblatt, today announced that two of those gun dealers have agreed to a landmark settlement – providing for a Special Master selected by the City and appointed by the court to monitor their firearms sales activities. A-1 Jewelry and Pawn, Inc., of Augusta, Georgia and AAA Gun & Pawn Brokers of Hephzibah, Georgia have both agreed to submit to close monitoring of their records and inventory, which may include videotaping of their sales activities and continued undercover surveillance. The Special Master will ensure that each dealer is in full compliance with all laws regulating the sales and purchase of firearms. No other city or state has ever won such an agreement. A-1 Jewelry and Pawn and AAA Gun & Pawn were among the 15 gun dealers named in the New York City lawsuit filed on May 15 and currently pending in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

So, the little dealers who don’t have Bob Barr representing them caved to avoid a court battle would be my guess. More:

“The City has obtained substantially stronger monitoring of sales and better dealer education, at no cost to the dealer. Both sides will benefit – the dealers will receive training in preventing gun trafficking, and the City will be protected from gun traffickers, with penalties on the dealers if they fail to comply with the agreement.”

As part of the agreement, a Special Master will be appointed and paid for by the City. The Special Master will have broad powers to monitor the gun dealers including unlimited review of firearms-related records, which include trace requests and multiple handgun sale reports, as well as the ability to conduct unrestricted inspections of all firearm inventories. Employees will receive enhanced training to ensure these dealers conduct legal firearm sales and more readily identify straw purchasers.

So, the city of New York is going to monitor (and pay for it) two small pawn shops in Georgia? Doesn’t sound like much to me other than a symbolic victory, which may be all they’re after.

More as I get it.

Update 2: Well, that seems to be it. Doesn’t seem very historic.

In other news, water is wet:

The law-enforcement source said Haq had a license to carry a concealed weapon, though not the weapon that was used in the shootings.

Clayton Cramer notes:

I wonder if the reporter actually was told this by a “law-enforcement source,” because a Washington State concealed pistol license (CPL) does not identify any particular pistol on it. I just renewed my Washington CPL on Friday. Neither the CPL that I was renewing, nor the form that I filled out, asked anything about what gun I would be carrying.

And this would be one of those rare occurrences of a person with a CPL license committing a crime. Expect the Brady bunch to point that out soon.

In the case of Anthony Diotaiuto, a kid who took 10 rounds of 9mm in his chest because he had a handgun carry permit and less than ounce of weed, Radley notes:

…the grand jury investigating the raid has been cancelled twice now, meaning that as we approach the one-year anniversary of the raid (August 6th), both the media and Diotaiuto’s family are still prohibited from accessing documents related to the investigation.

Apparently (and not surprisingly), an internal police investigation has cleared all officers involved.

(past coverage here)

Ayup:

What has happened? Democracy happened. Technology happened. Politics became a science and not an art. That’s what happened.

We are no longer a Republic of thinking people. We are a Democracy of ignorants. Myself included.

Phil Bredesen basically says he judges them by the color of their skin and not the content of their character.

Seen at publicola’s:

One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that ‘violence begets violence.’ I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure — and in some cases I have — that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.

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